Finished The Exorcist. Was nowhere near as good or as scary as the film, its kinda like Moby Dick where it likes to interrupt the action and explain things that are really outdated or was always quackery, or talk about Black Masses and Satanism as if what they were saying was fact. Like, "Possession? Superstitious! Scientifically unsound! She's probably telekinetic, that's scientifically sound. Here's a long paragraph on how psychology accepts that adolescent kids are telekinetic." or "oh yeah, Black Masses, happen ALL the time, where have you been? PLENTY of human sacrifices around." There weren't any scary parts that I can recall now, it relies waaaaay more on being obscene than atmosphere or tension, and there's only so many perverted or gross things you can make a possessed girl do before it gets tired. Its uncomfortable, not scary.

Now reading The Contract With God Trilogy by Will Eisner.

_________________I was really surprised the first time I saw a penis. After those banana tutorials, I was expecting something so different. -Tofulish

Right now I am reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Kind of obsessed with Jules Verne right now, having also read Journey to the Center of the Earth and Around the World in 80 Days within the past couple of months. He is so precise and hilarious, but also serious, but fun!

_________________But if one were to tickle Pluto, I suspect that it might very quietly laugh. - pandacookie

55k usd is like 4 cad or whatever equivalent in beavers you use on the island - joshua

i tried reading it a year or so ago, but couldn't get into it. but for reasons unknown to me, i felt the urge to give it another try. i'm glad i did! it is a bit of a quite unique reading experience. once i got to around page 130, things really started picking up and i can't put it down now.

So, I was bored yesterday and read, like, 300 pages of my SNL book. It's still annoyingly self-congratulatory and overly effusive but there's some little tidbits of gossip here and there to enjoy. My favorite thus far is an anecdote where one of the SNL writers was in a dressing room with Milton Berle and somehow, the topic of Uncle Miltie's legendary ginormous peen arose and Berle asked the writer if he'd like to see it and the writer said yeah and so Berle whipped it out for inspection and asked the writer what he thought about his penis and the writer described it as an "anaconda" and awkwardly told Berle that he thought his penis was "nice...very nice," and right at that moment, Gilda Radner walked into the room. And that's the story.

Also, it's sort of weird as everyone unanimously describes Belushi as always partying, always drugged out (I'm sitting here trying to think of an anecdote about him that doesn't involve some reflection upon his Olympian caliber coke consumption and am hard pressed) and not wanting to do any skits written by women and just sounding really difficult and dickish on the whole and then someone writes "people don't know how smart John was, how thoughtful, how considerate and so on," but seriously, every single contribution I've read thus far about him is all about the partying and coking and dickishness. I mean, give me a story that shows the thoughtful and considerate side, just pointing it out "you had to know the guy" isn't quite enough to drive the point home when every other story sort of validates the longstanding public perception. And now he just died in the book so it might be too late unless it comes in some retrospective anecdote.

i tried reading it a year or so ago, but couldn't get into it. but for reasons unknown to me, i felt the urge to give it another try. i'm glad i did! it is a bit of a quite unique reading experience. once i got to around page 130, things really started picking up and i can't put it down now.

I just got Monkey on a Stick in the mail, and I'm pretty excited about that. It's true crime about a place near where I'm from, so that excites me. My stepdad was shocked that I didn't know the story. It's about this Hare Krishna commune that was a cover for a ton of illegal activities.

I haven't read a lot of crime books at all but I've liked the true crime ones I've read. Please report back!

I like crime books so I reserved this at the library, also kind of interested because of the Krishna thing, I've read a bit before about how they were into a lot of illegal shiitake.

_________________"If I were M. de la Viandeviande, I would now write a thirteen page post about how you have to have free will to be vegan, but modern science does not suggest any evidence for free will, therefore it is impossible to be vegan." -mumbles

I just got Monkey on a Stick in the mail, and I'm pretty excited about that. It's true crime about a place near where I'm from, so that excites me. My stepdad was shocked that I didn't know the story. It's about this Hare Krishna commune that was a cover for a ton of illegal activities.

I haven't read a lot of crime books at all but I've liked the true crime ones I've read. Please report back!

I like crime books so I reserved this at the library, also kind of interested because of the Krishna thing, I've read a bit before about how they were into a lot of illegal shiitake.

I like it so far; I'm only on page 118 or so. It's kind of sad the amount of corruption and whatnot, because it seems like it started in a good place and there were a lot of genuine believers.

I think more than anything I love the way they talk about how beautiful West Virginia is! I hope you like it Quarantined! I'll update when I finish linanil whether it's worth looking in to.

_________________I would eat Dr. Cow pocket cheese in a second. I would eat it if you hid it under your hat, or in your backpack, but not if it was in your shoe. That's where I draw the line. -allularpunk

i tried reading it a year or so ago, but couldn't get into it. but for reasons unknown to me, i felt the urge to give it another try. i'm glad i did! it is a bit of a quite unique reading experience. once i got to around page 130, things really started picking up and i can't put it down now.

OMG Georges Perec!!!! I admire him so much! (and no doubt he's been quite a challenging nightmare for translators)

yay, glad to meet another GP fan. although, admittedly, I don't know how I came to find his book. I think I was just going click happy on amazon.com looking at recommendations or something. I'm absolutely loving it.

Have you read any Steven Millhauser? I adore him. If you haven't read any Millhauser before, I suggest the 'barnum museum' short story collection or "little kingdom" collection that has 3 novellas inside.

_________________"....but I finally found block tempeh a few weeks ago with the intent to give it my virginity." -Moon

I'm just about to finish Zadie's Smith's latest book, NW, which I've really enjoyed. I received JK Rowling's novel for grown-ups, The Casual Vacancy, for Christmas so that's up next, and then it's time to start working through my exam reading lists, which means a five month whirlwind tour of English literature from circa 1300-2000 AD. (I've decided to start with the 20th C and going backwards in time, so I'll be kicking things off with a little EM Forster.)

Oooh. You must have been very nice this year because that looks like a really interesting book! I'm also interested in the Kraken book suggested on the same page... Perhaps reading up on octopuses/squids should go on my list of projects for 2013?

I seem to be worrying about the planet... First I read a Swedish book about the chemicals in toiletries and stuff, then I read Resilient Cities about designing cities to withstand peak oil and climate change, and finally I'm reading Six Degrees. Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas.

I finished The Mitford Girls which was fascinating because it had a lot of information that I didn't already know, particularly about their extended family, and extremely annoying because of the authorial tone which I found immensely irritating.

I've just started When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone by Philip Gould, which is very good so far, albeit a bit traumatic.

_________________Everyone turns into Boo Radley, if they live long enough ~ seitanicversesThere are as many ways to live as there are humans in the world ~ SchwaGrrrl

I just got Monkey on a Stick in the mail, and I'm pretty excited about that. It's true crime about a place near where I'm from, so that excites me. My stepdad was shocked that I didn't know the story. It's about this Hare Krishna commune that was a cover for a ton of illegal activities.

I like crime books so I reserved this at the library, also kind of interested because of the Krishna thing, I've read a bit before about how they were into a lot of illegal shiitake.

I like it so far; I'm only on page 118 or so. It's kind of sad the amount of corruption and whatnot, because it seems like it started in a good place and there were a lot of genuine believers.

I think more than anything I love the way they talk about how beautiful West Virginia is! I hope you like it Quarantined! I'll update when I finish linanil whether it's worth looking in to.

I'm sure it'll be interesting, I don't know WV at all so that'll be cool to read about too.

I actually pick up a lot of book recs here- recently finished Aquariums of Pyongyang on Footface's rec too.

_________________"If I were M. de la Viandeviande, I would now write a thirteen page post about how you have to have free will to be vegan, but modern science does not suggest any evidence for free will, therefore it is impossible to be vegan." -mumbles

I started and finished One Bloody Thing After Another, which was pretty similar to Atrocitology but much more compressed. I felt like it didn't give enough context to make some of the events (almost) make sense. But it did have a few events that weren't covered in Atrocitology because the latter didn't cover acts of nature.

I'm now reading Stranger Things Happen*, which appears to be a collection of short ghost stories. I chose it because I wanted something short to try to catch up with my reading list and didn't realise it was a collection of short stories. So I'm actually not reading it very quickly because I'm just not that keen on short stories. But I'll get through it - at least they're ghost stories.

I just bought a shiitake ton of books in the Kindle sale. I'm set for a few months, I think (well, depending on how long they take me).

*I got this, and a bunch of other stuff, in the Humble Indy e-book Bundle sale a few months ago. I spent less than £1 per book for a bunch of stuff that I may or may not have read otherwise, so I thought it was worth it.

_________________A pie eating contest is a battle with no losers. - amandabear

I finally started reading again! After my baby was born (almost six months ago), I haven't really had time to dig into a book like I used to. Right now I'm reading:[i]After the Ecstasy, the Laundry[\i] by Jack KornfieldSo far, so good! I had actually started it earlier this year, but got too busy to read the whole thing. I picked up where I left off, and I'm about halfway through now. This subject totally fascinates me, and I'm really enjoying the book!

_________________when you realise how perfect everything is, you will tilt you head back and laugh at the sky. -buddha

I gave up on Stranger Things Happen. I got 76% through it (I was reading on my Kindle), so I'm still counting it as read. I just couldn't read any more. It started out in one genre for about half of the book, then changed, and then changed again. And the more I read, the worse the stories got. I just couldn't finish it.

I think I'll move on to Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. I've heard good about it (possibly from someone on here).

_________________A pie eating contest is a battle with no losers. - amandabear